The final scene of the whole series - but unfortunately it really should go at the end of ROTK, which means yet another 'ending' - should be a scene where a young Professor Tolkien is walking through an English woodland (this would be set in the 1930s before we'd managed to destroy all our woods), and he gets a glimpse of a hobbit dashing across the path in front of him. He tries to follow it, and finds it has dropped an old red book, which he picks up and takes back to his study, where he starts to decipher the first page of unfamiliar lettering. Anyway, something like that, only better. Bear in mind I may have gone a bit mad here, as I'm currently trying to break out of Rivendell.

A lot of viewers don't realise that this is a pre-history of Britain and Europe, so it would be nice to get that point across at the end of the films. Won't happen though. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

I think the Hobbit films should definitely be viewed after LOTR and so the way TABA ends should round out the whole series, if only in the EE.

Either that or we get a 'bridging' montage featuring Barad-dur under construction, flashes of Rivendell and Lothlorien, Gollum leaving the mountains, Balin entering them, then a final scene with Bilbo and Gandalf.

It is a very interesting idea... but one I cannot disagree with more ;)

The whole pre-history thing is something Tolkien said and wanted, yes... but it remains a rather ambigious describtion of his work. Nothing that would make much sense in the movie's context. Causing much more confusion, and no depth at all.

More than that, I would rather not see more bad blood between the filmmakers and the Tolkien family (and some Tolkien fans who could never warm themselves for the adaptions). Seeing the professor himself in an interpretation of their father/grandfather/idol's work they already are displeased with (to use a nice word) would probably not be seen as hommage, tribute or respect but as tasteless or insulting.

It also does not fit Tolkien, I think, to put him - as a person - that much into the spotlight of his stories.

“A dragon is no idle fancy. Whatever may be his origins, in fact or invention, the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination, richer in significance than his barrow is in gold.” J.R.R. Tolkien

Words of wisdom that should be remembered - both by critics, purists and anyone in between.

It is a very interesting idea... but one I cannot disagree with more ;)

The whole pre-history thing is something Tolkien said and wanted, yes... but it remains a rather ambigious describtion of his work. Nothing that would make much sense in the movie's context. Causing much more confusion, and no depth at all.

More than that, I would rather not see more bad blood between the filmmakers and the Tolkien family (and some Tolkien fans who could never warm themselves for the adaptions). Seeing the professor himself in an interpretation of their father/grandfather/idol's work they already are displeased with (to use a nice word) would probably not be seen as hommage, tribute or respect but as tasteless or insulting.

It also does not fit Tolkien, I think, to put him - as a person - that much into the spotlight of his stories.

Yes well, I kind of agree with everything you said, except that I think Tolkien would have been a lot more impressed with these films than Christopher Tolkien will allow himself to be - JRR did after all engage with some of the worst film adaptors in history, whilst remaining polite and not engaging hitmen to 'take care' of them (which is what I'd have been tempted to do, given what they were proposing to do to his stories).

PJ and co are so far removed from the Hollywood that Tolkien knew, that I think he would have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of reverence that was given to his stories by the films. I also think he would have been enchanted by many of the visuals in the films. And he was open to and encouraging of people extending his mythos and making their own stories within it. What he did object to was some of the hippie dungeons and dragons culture that latched onto his work.

Fortunately, the director we ended up with avoided the blockbuster treatment by going with a great ensemble cast that included some of the best theatre (ie real) actors in the world, and a committed crew. Anyway, I've just realised why my whole idea is flawed, so JRR is back on the cutting room floor and I've been fired as scriptwriter. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

I even thought that as I was writing it - shades of that annoying fawn thing scurrying through the woods etc. And I left CS Lewis behind at about 10 years old when I realised that it was just crude religious ideology bolted on to cute animals.

Anyway, the main reason my idea is stupid (and I did say I'd gone a bit mad) was that Tolkien's Middle Earth doesn't represent our actual pre-history; it's supposed to be a mythologised version of our ancient history, such that the Saxons or the Celts might have written if the Normans hadn't turned up and ruined everything.

So Morgoth might have been some half-remembered foreign invader that seemed magically powerful, and the Maia perhaps the Greek gods, heard about second-hand via the friendly advanced Greeks/Phoenicians (Numenoreans?) that brought learning and technology to the early British and helped in some of their battles. And Sauron would be the lieutenant of lesser power that remained a threat after the main enemy was defeated. And all this great history filtered through the local tales of a small farming community, trying to fit all the pieces together when some of them found themselves involved in outside matters and returned to their village to tell about it. And of course everyone still being fascinated by tales of the previous inhabitants, now either extinct or reduced to hiding in remote forests and hills - now turned, by Chinese whispers, into elves or perhaps dwarves - the result of tales passed down for generations from those that had once encountered these people in the distant past.

So of course Tolkien wouldn't have found a book dropped by a hobbit; he would have painstakingly pieced together the myths from the second-hand accounts of ancient historians who found the writings and translated or collated the texts. Or through remnants and clues scattered through the more recent writings of the people who came after the events that are being recounted.

Which is much more interesting, scholarly and a lot less CS Lewis. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

It would completely jolt the viewer out of the experience. Plus it would be a rather bizarre bridge between The Hobbit and LOTR. 'I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.' 'So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.'